Akhtar Hameed Khan

Akhtar Hameed Khan
Born(1914-07-15)15 July 1914
Died9 October 1999(1999-10-09) (aged 85)
NationalityPakistani
Alma materMagdalene College, Cambridge
Known forMicrocredit, Microfinance, Comilla Model, Orangi Pilot Project
AwardsRamon Magsaysay Award, Nishan-e-Imtiaz, Sitara-e-Pakistan, Jinnah Award
Scientific career
FieldsRural development, Microcredit
InstitutionsBangladesh Academy for Rural Development; National Centre for Rural Development, Pakistan; Michigan State University

Akhter Hameed Khan (Urdu: اختر حمید خان, pronounced [ˈəxt̪ər ɦəˈmiːd̪ xaːn]; 15 July 1914 – 9 October 1999) was a Pakistani development practitioner and social scientist. He promoted participatory rural development in Pakistan and other developing countries, and widely advocated community participation in development. His particular contribution was the establishment of a comprehensive project for rural development, the Comilla Model (1959). It earned him the Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Philippines and an honorary Doctorate of law from Michigan State University.

In the 1980s he started a bottom-up community development initiative of Orangi Pilot Project, based in the outskirts of Karachi, which became a model of participatory development initiatives. He also directed many programmes, from microcredit to self-finance and from housing provision to family planning, for rural communities and urban slums. It earned him international recognition and high honours in Pakistan. Khan was fluent in at least seven languages and dialects. Apart from many scholarly books and articles, he also published a collection of poems and travelogues in Urdu.